Monday, 31 August 2015

I have a stash of wooden embellishments, but my favourite are the words by freckled fawn. They look great on cards, project life pages and layouts and I often use them in their naked form.

I have been toying with the idea of colouring them. My first thought was promarkers, but it didn't have the desired glossy effect I was looking for, then I tried paint but it was too matt.

So I hunted around my craft space and came across my embossing powders which I very rarely use, and my versamark ink pad,

and gave it a go firstly with black embossing powder, and then with some white. And they turned out just the way I wanted and thought I have to blog this, think of all the other wooden embellishments you have in your stash and the amazing glossy colours you could do.

I'm going to add some of these to my simple stories snap album, which I am in process of putting together with this years holiday photos of Euro Disney.

Wednesday, 26 August 2015

Hi, Carol with you today….when I went to crop a couple of weekends ago Vanessa had the August kit out on the table - its a wonderful array of greens/blues/mints that I just had to get one…

So, armed with several beer mats found in my "to alter" box…I have made this:-

A mini album of our summer:-

each beer mat was covered with a piece of the double sided patterned papers and then distressed and inked…the rest of the papers and some of the stickers from the kit were added to each page and outlined with a black pen.

I still have loads of papers and embellishments left for my next post…

Wednesday, 19 August 2015

for this post I wanted to create a frame/book, the papers used are from an old basic grey pack, just because I was sorting out some old papers in my craft space and decided it was about time I used them up. I'm sure many of us have papers we have not used, because its too nice or just because we like the feel of it.

The base of the frame is made with white card stock and patterned paper adhered

after I distressed the edges with distress ink.

I then made an open box shape to sit inside the frame and covered with contrasting paper. decorated the inside of the box with basic grey stickers, a photo and one of the simple stories photo stickers.

the outside of the frame is decorated cutting flowers from the paper and rolling them up and delicate blue fern studio chipboard pieces which I have left naked but added a small amount of distress ink to.

Friday, 14 August 2015

Tomorrow is our monthly crop at Otley Village Hall - it's quite early this month as the 1st was on a Saturday, but we are all ready! August's kit has been designed by one of our crop regulars, Lynn, so get ready to dust off the sewing machine and distress stains :)

As usual, we will have biscuits, homemade cakes, tea & coffee, along with a selection of punches and dies for you to use. If you want to join us, just drop us an email!

Thursday, 6 August 2015

July is always a busy month in our household. Not only is it heading towards the summer holidays but its also a month of events like school sports day, parent sharing days and school trips and my son's birthday, and every year I agonise over the party bags.

Which ones to buy, theme and what to put in them, so this year I made them.

As it was his 7th birthday, I went with the theme super hero's, and a good friend lent me some stamps she had, that worked perfectly with the theme.

So my Kraft paper bags were from a book shop in town 4 for £1.00, perfect, a good size and reasonably priced. Firstly I cut a strip of coloured card at 4.5cm and distressed the edges in black ink and put to one side. I then used my kasiercraft tiny dot clear stamp to create my background and then adhered my coloured card strip. I stamped the words "Super and Boom" on some smooth white card with black ink and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder, cut them out and coloured them in with my promarkers. These were super quick and easy to make, and everyone appeared to love having an original party bag to take home.

Tuesday, 4 August 2015

We've all been there.
You want to scrapbook but for whatever reason, it's just not happening.
You can't find the time, you loose interest, you don't know where to start.....

My problem lately has been time. I want to scrap but I keep using the excuse that I don't have time. I know when I do scrap though I feel so much better for taking a few minutes out of my manic day.

1. I think the first goal to get yourself back scrapping again is to find something that you really want to scrap about. Something that gets you excited. A story that you really want included in your album or a photo that you just love. For me that's our Disney trip that we took last year.

2. Next, pick out a few papers and embellishments. Sometimes we have just too much stash around us and it can feel rather over whelming. You just don't know where to start. Too many decisions.
Make it simple for yourself and just pick out a few that coordinate and place them on your desk.
I've picked out the Simple Stories - Summer Vibes' collection. This has everything that I need.

3. Set your self a challenge. Maybe find a sketch online? I've just joined up to a Disney Scrappers Blog. There was a challenge that listed a whole load of titles. I loved this idea. I picked one and that got my LO started. I instantly knew which photos I wanted to scrap and I was on my merry way.

This LO came together so quickly from that moment on.

Another part of the challenge was to use at least 3 different types of alphas/fonts. This collection comes with a sheet of alpha stickers. It has 3 different types and a whole load of words and phrases too. It makes creating LO's so easy and fun.

Some of the stickers I've added a 3d foam stickers to the back to give them a little added height.

The double sided papers are stunning. They are such a pleasure to play with. I like to outline everything with black pen to help it stand out.

I cut out a couple of flags to stick either side of my photos. I didn't want them to look flat and lifeless on my LO though so I crumpled them up before adding double sided sticky to the back to stick them in place.

This LO came together so easily. I just needed a nudge to get me started.

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